Isabella at 10 months

Here's our little cutie at 10 months. Notice she's showing off her new teeth in a couple of these shots. She's picking up on a lot of words and standing up with the aid of the furniture.

Joel turns 7!

Can you believe it? He's so tall for his age (still ABOVE the 95th percentile) and skinny. He tolerates school, but, really, school is a bother because it gets in the way of his playtime. He still has a soft spot in his heart for Thomas the Tank Engine, but Pokemon and Star Wars Legos have taken over his interests. He loves computer games, too.

On September 11, his actual birthday, we allowed him to bring some friends with him to Chuck E. Cheese. It was a good time to go, since it was a Thursday and not too crowded. He had a blast. Then, on Friday when Jacob and Hannah came home, we had a family party at home. He LOVED being king of the day and perhaps took it a bit too far when he wanted to boot Daddy from his seat at the head of the table.

Last Hurrah

I think we're going to have to refer to the summer of 2008 as the "Free" summer. What a bonus that, on the day Joel started school, we received in the mail free tickets to Universal Studios for the entire family. YAY! We were hoping to get to a theme park this summer, but decided it best that we save our money. What a blessing and surprise this was. So, we took the family on Labor Day as our last hurrah. I was surprised how family-friendly is was (last time I went was in the 90's and pre-kids). We didn't have to split up to to tend to varied interests and age levels and they are very baby-accomodating. We stayed from opening to closing. Mark really enjoyed the Simpsons ride and wanted to give it another spin before we left. I sat out to nurse Isabella and surprised the family with a big Simpson's doughnut to cap off the day with a burst of sugar.